At about 16 o'clock on April 27, the inbound and outbound traffic of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge exceeded 10 million.
Messages instantly swiped the network. But there was one person, but it was calm.
"I believe that the next 10 million will be reached soon, definitely not in five years!"
On April 27, Su Quanke was in his office. (Xinhua News Agency)
Su Quanke served as the chief engineer of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge for 19 years. This northwestern man, from the muddy pond of the yellow earth to the Lingding Ocean, from the construction of a small village bridge of less than 100 meters, to the world's longest sea-crossing bridge of 55 kilometers.
The span of his life is a microcosm of China's bridge construction industry from weak to strong.
Ignorantly, he became a graduate student majoring in bridges
Su Quanke was born in 1962 in Qishan County, Shaanxi Province, at the foot of the mountain. If there is any connection between him and water when he was a teenager, it may just be that he fluttered in the pond at the entrance of the village when he was a child and learned to swim.
Because of his excellent grades, in 1978, Su Quanke took the college entrance examination and was admitted to the Baoji branch of Shaanxi Normal University, not far from home, majoring in physics.
The 16-year-old became a middle school physics teacher after graduating from university.
Three years later, Su Quanke applied for the graduate school of Northwestern Polytechnical University, but was not admitted due to the problem of professional enrollment quotas.
Su Quanke carried the transcript and wanted to try his luck at other schools, but he accidentally stumbled into the gate of Xi'an Highway College, and became a graduate student majoring in bridge.
Su Quanke's work photo. (Xinhua News Agency)
Structural Mechanics, Elastic Mechanics, Engineering Drawing...... Many bridge-related basic courses, Su Quan need to make up for them, some follow the undergraduate classes, and some self-study. In three years, in addition to the graduate course, he almost studied a bridge undergraduate major.
"When you encounter a problem, you don't hide, but try to solve it by all means. This experience shaped Su Quanke's character.
During his graduate studies, Su Quanke participated in the construction of the first bridge in his life - a small bridge of less than 100 meters on a small river in Dali County, Shaanxi.
Since then, Su Quanke's dream of building a bridge has begun to take root and sprout......
Eager to build a bridge across the sea, he saw the sea for the first time
It was in the class of graduate students that Su Quanke first heard that on the coast of the distant South China Sea, a sea-crossing bridge was being planned to be built, the "Lingdingyang Bridge".
At that time, the bridge was only at the level of imagination, but it planted a seed in Su Quanke's heart. Such a cross-sea bridge made him excited and kept him awake at night, how many times, in his class on the Loess Plateau, his thoughts drifted to the Lingding Ocean on an imaginary sailboat.
In 1987, after graduating from Su Quanke's graduate school, he entered the Guangdong Provincial Transportation Research Institute, and "Lingdingyang" was close at hand.
Su Quanke knows that in order to complete the dream of building a sea-crossing bridge, it is necessary to start from the most basic work - piling, excavation, and ruler......
At the end of the day, Su Quanke became a "clay man".
However, it wasn't until two years later that the "clay figures", eager to build bridges, saw the sea for the first time.
Su Quanke (second from left) work photo. (Xinhua News Agency)
"I was excited to see the sea for the first time! When I saw the sea in Shekou, Shenzhen, I asked where Lingdingyang was, and they said that the sea outside Shekou was Lingdingyang. ”
In 1991, Su Quanke began to work on his first sea-crossing bridge project, the Shantou Bay Bridge, and subsequently, he was involved in the construction of the Taishan Town Bay Bridge and the Xiamen Haicang Bridge.
"As long as there is a project for a sea-crossing bridge, I will try to participate. ”
It is necessary to build a world-class sea-crossing bridge in the motherland
In 1994, Su Quanke was on the other side of the ocean and saw the Golden Gate Bridge of the United States.
The advanced construction methods, materials and equipment made Su Quanke breathtaking, and at that time, many of the bridge construction on the mainland were still in the stage of "people shouldering the shoulders", and the huge gap made Su Quanke secretly determined to build a world-class sea-crossing bridge in the motherland.
"As long as you aim for this goal, no matter how tired you are, you don't feel hard. Su Quanke said.
In 2003, Su Quanke, who has rich experience in the management of the sea-crossing bridge project, was recommended to serve as the technical leader of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge Preliminary Work Coordination Group Office.
Su Quanke (second from left) work photo. (Xinhua News Agency)
"A little sooner or later, it might not be me. ”
In the face of the hard-won opportunity, Su Quanke cherishes it incomparably.
Since then, Su Quanke has traveled to the sites of cross-sea projects in more than a dozen countries, repeatedly demonstrated and revised hundreds of design and research plans, rooted in the front line to study complex and harsh marine conditions, and led the team to overcome the problems in the history of bridge and tunnel construction in the world......
"Every bridge I handle by myself, I will climb up the key places, every place, and keep an eye on it carefully, and even where this thing is processed, I have to go to the factory to see, every bridge built, I have a bottom in my heart. Su Quanke said.
On October 24, 2018, the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge was officially opened to traffic. (Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Liang Xu)
In October 2018, the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge was officially opened.
Su Quanke was 41 years old when he participated in the construction of the bridge, and he was 56 years old when the bridge was completed.
"The fifteen years that we have been in Lingdingyang are to fight for China's bridge peers and for China's manufacturing industry. ”
After the completion of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, China's bridge construction industry has become a different world.
Su Quanke's work photo. (Xinhua News Agency)
In 2022, after 19 years of companionship with the bridge, Su Quanke stepped down from the post of chief engineer at the age of 60 and went to the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou) as the chief engineer and professor of practice.
Today, although he has stepped down as chief engineer, Su Quanke often returns to the bridge to see, and what he is most proud of is that the bridge, which has been open to traffic for more than five years and has exceeded 10 million inbound and outbound vehicles, is "still like new".
"Our generation of engineers is worthy of this original heart!"
Source: Xinhua News Agency